100% retention mortgage survey

[Toomuchtooyoung01]

To briefly summarise, our doer-upper house turned into an absolute nightmare, OH stripped it all out then after installing a new bathroom, decided it was all too much and downed tools and we have had to live in it ever since (yes I know this is outrageous).
I got the house valued and was surprised that there were offers made and we have/had a buyer, and finally had an offer accepted on a house we really like yesterday. However we have now been told that following our buyers mortgage valuation survey, the lender is refusing to lend him money for our house as it needs so much work/100% retention. He is apparently looking for alternative lenders but I’m not holding out much hope. Will other surveyors not just say the same thing and cause the sale to fall through?
What on earth do we do now?
Absolutely devastated. Just as I thought this nightmare was coming to an end and there was a way out, it’s all been snatched away again.

If the property is essentially uninhabitable in its current state then few mainstream lenders will lend on it and you’re really looking for cash buyers / investors who can access specialist development mortgages, or consider putting the property up for auction.

Those sort of retentions usually relate to the absence of kitchen or bathroom, and boiler. It might be worth asking the buyer to check with the surveyor what's the minimum that needs to be in place before the retention is withdrawn.
IME, installation of a sink and working toilet can make the difference.

We have a brand new bathroom and a completely functional kitchen, the roof is fine, downstairs fine (worn but fine), 2x bedrooms stripped out upstairs, 1xbedroom ok. Our estate agent thinks it’s very harsh the surveyor came to this conclusion. The boiler is old BUT we have a brand new one literally boxed up sitting here which the new buyer is/was ready to install (he is a tradesman and has colleagues ready to get to work on the house as soon as we had exchanged).

It could be worth the buyer asking if the bank would be happy to proceed if you fitted the boiler?

I appreciate you don’t want to, but it might be your least bad option… if the kitchen and bathroom are functional, the boiler would be the most likely problem.

See if he can find another lender (check with the estate agent that’s he’s using a broker), but if he can’t get a mortgage then I think you either have to do some more work to the house (I would suggest getting the boiler fitted and sorting out the bedrooms (plus tarting the kitchen up- paint and a new worktop) (beg, borrow or steal the money, or sell some stuff to fund it)), or take a hit on the price and sell to someone who doesn’t need a mortgage. Can your partner sort out the bedrooms if you get someone else to do the rest? Unless he has a very good excuse I hope you’re not letting him anywhere near your next place.